Programs & Videos

The Historical Society presented its 11th annual Mock Court Program at the E. Barrett Prettyman U.S. Courthouse on March 11, 2016. One hundred twenty-eight D.C. high school students from Maret, McKinley Tech, Woodson and School Without Walls delivered appellate-style oral arguments before 11 participating federal judges. "Outstanding" was the universal judgment.

Over 80 students from five public high schools in the District participated in this year's Mock Court Program, arguing before 10 judges from the Court of Appeals and the District Court. Each student addressed one of two issues: whether a school official violated the Fourth Amendment rights of three students by affixing a GPS device to their bicycles, or whether a provider of webcasting services to high school students violated a user's First Amendment rights by cancelling a webcast that included political and profane content.

A reenactment of the D.C. Circuit argument in Morrison v. Olson on October 28, 2015. Senior Judge Laurence Silberman presided over the argument, with Theodore B. Olson (representing himself) and Catherine E. Stetson (representing the Independent Counsel).

Watch and listen as Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson and Senior Judge Paul L. Friedman take you behind the scenes at the U.S. District Court and talk about judging -- then and now with moderator Miguel Estrada, Esq.

Listen as James Forman of Yale Law School moderates a discussion on the significance of Bolling v. Sharpe and Brown v. Board of Education as well as key public education issues and challenges presented by the twin goals of achieving integration and improving education in public schools.

About 85 high school students presented arguments before nine federal judges in the Historical Society's ninth Mock Court Program on April 25, 2014. After practicing their arguments with volunteer lawyer mentors in the weeks preceding the program, the students impressed the judges with their ability to argue a case involving search and seizure issues.

The "Women in the Life and Law of the D.C. Circuit Courts" Historical Society program, held June 2013 brought together judges, administrators, law clerks, and practicing attorneys, each with direct experience in our courts, to discuss the past, present, and future of women in the Courts of the D.C. Circuit.

On April 12, 2013, 75 students from six D.C. public high schools and two private schools had the unusual opportunity of arguing in the federal courthouse before federal judges in the eighth Mock Court Program sponsored by the Historical Society. Nine judges heard the arguments and selected an outstanding advocate in each of their courtrooms-with each winner receiving a monetary prize from the Society.

During this April 2012 program, University of Pennsylvania professor Stephen J. Morse described the insanity defense as giving legal life to the moral values of fairness and responsibility that the Supreme Court should uphold as a constitutional right.

A ruling in the mid 1950's by a federal judge in the D.C. Circuit almost single-handedly started turning the judicial tide against the "red scare" generated by Senator Joseph McCarthy and others, according to a panel presented by the Historical Society of the D.C. Circuit in May 2011.

One hundred students from ten Washington area high schools appeared in Federal Court on April 8, 2011 to argue cases before U.S. District Court judges. The students, practicing their litigation skills, were from 10 schools (Columbia Heights Education Campus, Coolidge, Idea PCS, Maret, McKinley Tech, National Cathedral, School Without Walls, St. Albans, Theodore Roosevelt, and H.D. Woodson) and presented their arguments to 11 judges.

Celebrating its 20th anniversary, the Historical Society presented a program at the D.C. Circuit's Judicial Conference on June 9, 2010. Panelists, all active participants in the Watergate drama, probed the conflicts, tensions and personalities of the individuals who, and institutions that, played a role in the Watergate events.

In the 1970's influential judges on the D.C. Circuit engaged in a well-publicized debate about the appropriate scope of judicial review of federal agency rulemaking.

In July 2009, Almost 200 people listened intently as Roger M. Adelman and William D. Nussbaum made closing arguments drawn directly from the transcripts of two of the Teapot Dome trials (United States v. Albert Fall and United States v. Edward Doheny), arguments that were actually made by defense counsel Frank Hogan and Special Prosecutor and future Supreme Court Justice Owen J.Roberts years ago.

The Hon. Patricia M. Wald, Hon. Timothy B. Dyk and Hon. Glen O. Robinson discussed the FCC indecency cases heard in the D.C. Circuit in a wide-ranging panel discussion on October 14, 2008. The panel was moderated by Christopher J. Wright, Esq. Mr. Wright, who previously served as General Counsel of the FCC and argued the Action for Children's Television case before the en banc D.C. Circuit in 1994, provided an overview of the FCC's indecency jurisprudence.

On July 31, 2008, the Historical Society sponsored "Technology in the Courtroom: Could it Change the Course of History?" The program explored the relative advantages and disadvantages of the use of technology to present evidence and arguments in a jury trial.

On November 29, 2007, the Historical Society of the D.C. Circuit presented a program on the role of the Courts of the District of Columbia Circuit in developing the law respecting the Freedom of Information Act ("FOIA") and national security.

On June 2, 1952, the Supreme Court decided in Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co., v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579, that President Truman's seizure of most of the nation's steel mills to avert a nation-wide strike of steelworkers and keep the mills operating during the Korean War was an unauthorized, unconstitutional executive action that could not stand. The steel companies presented their claims initially to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, which ruled against the Government on all points and issued a preliminary injunction.

Attorneys directly involved in the Pentagon Papers cases and law professors who have written about the cases talked with moderator Carl Stern about their experiences in a panel discussion sponsored by the Historical Society on November 30, 2006.

On July 26, 2006, the Historical Society staged a reenactment of the cross examination of a government witness from the Independent Counsel prosecution of former Secretary of Agriculture, Michael Espy. The Honorable James Robertson presided over this unique program and moderated a discussion among the participants afterward on the art of cross examination and the unusual challenges presented by the Espy trial.